The Truth
by Emily1982
Summary: Gawain watches Arthur and Lancelot and tries to work them out.


Title: The Truth

Rating: PG

Author: FlowerGirlEM

Beta: Thanks to Selina Kyle, for spotting all my stupid mistakes, and pointing out were I wasn't making sense.

Summary: Gawain watches Arthur and Lancelot, and tries to work them out.

Disclaimer: They don't belong to me – if they did, Lancelot wouldn't have died! (Who, me, biter?)

That Arthur and Lancelot were something special to each other had never been in doubt amongst the other knights.

It had always been there, from the first moment the two of them met, in the way Lancelot's eyes followed Arthur around the Wall, and Arthur's followed him around the battlefield.

In the way, that, when all the other knights protested before a mission, that Arthur never had to ask Lancelot whether he would go or not. They both knew that where Arthur went, Lancelot would go as well. And that Arthur would never go where he knew Lancelot could not.

It was unspoken, whatever was between them, but visible to anyone who chose to look. And the other knights did choose to, when it was their Commander and one of them. When they had their own close friends and they looked up to Arthur and Lancelot, wondered if the two of them were close in the same way as the other knights were with their own friends, or if it was something different.

That was harder to see.

Gawain was aware that he watched them, after a battle, after he'd looked for Galahad, and made sure he wasn't dead or seriously injured. He just wasn't sure what he was watching for. He thought he'd know when he saw it, but what it was, he couldn't say.

What it wasn't was much easier, after fighting beside the two of them for over ten years.

He'd seen Lancelot charge into insanely dangerous situations, because Arthur was in the middle of them.

He'd seen Arthur glance around the battle field, checking who was still standing, and stopping when his eyes fell on Lancelot.

He'd seen Arthur with his arm around Lancelot, supporting the other knight as he hobbled crookedly across the battlefield, barely able to walk, half blinded by tears of pain from the arrow stuck in his knee.

He'd watched the way Lancelot fell at their Commander's side, the day Arthur was struck on the head by an axe handle and left for what the Woads must have assumed to be dead. He'd been closest to the pair, had moved forward to comfort Lancelot, thinking that this then must be the end, and felt Lancelot's violent shaking, then seen him go limp with relief when Arthur opened his eyes.

None of that helped, though, none of that was any more than they all did, for their friends. It was only noticeable because Arthur was the Commander, and Lancelot was… well, noticeable. Rarely silent, never still, always something to say for himself, and always knowing exactly what was going on everywhere with everything. Like some old woman, Gawain thought, but surely that knowledge was useful to Arthur. Lancelot always seemed to know who couldn't be separated from a friend, and who would be better for being far away for a while. Arthur might draw up the battle plans, but Gawain was sure it was Lancelot who placed the troops.

Back when there had been enough troops to place, of course.

Everyone looked back with nostalgia to the days when there had been a hundred knights around the table. Life had seemed simpler then, death further away, and immortality still possible.

It was hard to think of that when barely a handful of them remained and battle was more about crossing your fingers and hoping for the best than it was about strategy.

They'd agreed at the beginning that none would be replaced after they fell, that the strength of the knights came from having been together for so long. They'd all agreed to it, but that didn't make the idea of the Knights of the Round Table passing into history any more appealing.

It lent a kind of urgency to their skirmishes with the Woads though, one that seemed to carry them through unharmed, most days.

Not today.

The attack had come unexpectedly and viciously, and when the haze of battle cleared, the ground was littered with dead Woads, and the body of Kay.

Kay, who had taken one look at homesick, bedraggled, lonely Lancelot, the last to join their band of Sarmatian conscripts, long after the others had started out for Britain together, long after friendships had been made, and taken the young man under his care. More than five years older than his younger friend, Kay had treated Lancelot like a younger brother and every knight had listened to the other's usually lengthy complaints about how he was not in fact a child, and did not need to be watched over like one.

They'd only been words, Gawain knew. Lancelot might have an intense friendship with Arthur, but he was still tied to Kay in some way, and would not have voluntarily given up that protectiveness, even when he started to drift away from his older brother.

All those memories and more, of Kay laughing and drinking and in battle and in the practice ring, flashed through Gawain's head in the few seconds it took him to realise whose body was lying amongst the Woads.

And in that moment, even before he looked for Galahad, he was looking for Lancelot, and for Arthur.

The knights had become separated during the battle, as they often did, and somehow Arthur and Lancelot had ended up far away on opposite sides of the battlefield. Odd for two who normally fought close together, but anything could happen in battle, and clearly this time it had.

Lancelot was making his way gradually back to them, walking next to Galahad – Gawain felt an intense, flash of relief – scanning the battlefield for Arthur, who had clearly already spotted the other knight, given the casual way he was moving towards the others.

'What are you –.' Bors' voice came loudly from over Gawain's shoulder, and stopped when he saw the answer. 'This is not good.'

Gawain shook his head in agreement, his attention still half on Lancelot and Galahad, close enough now that he could hear Galahad's voice, although not his words, and see the slight frown creasing Lancelot's face.

Looking for Kay, then.

'Will you tell him?' The knights were gathering, triumph in victory fading away as they discovered Kay, transforming into sadness, and concern for their fellow knight.

Gawain nodded in response to Dagonet's quiet question, although he had no idea what he might say.

He took a step towards Lancelot anyway, and that movement must have caught his attention, for the other knight stopped, looking more closely at the gathered knights. Gawain could see him count, carefully, who was standing there, add in Galahad at his side and Arthur, leading his horse across the edges of the battlefield, and then Lancelot was moving swiftly towards them and it was too late for whatever words Gawain might have found to lessen his shock.

Kay's body was not badly damaged, other than the arrow that pierced his throat. Maybe that was what froze Lancelot at his side, or caused the choked question, 'he's not ?'

'Lancelot…' Gawain stopped, no words coming to him. If it was Galahad lying there… there were no right words.

A moment later, he wished he'd at least tried to find some, as Lancelot swayed before them, his eyes drifting closed.

Galahad, still closest to him, reached for the other knight, but Arthur was there first, his arms going protectively round Lancelot as he sagged towards the ground, unconscious. Arthur's eyes flickered to the body they still surrounded, and a flash of pain crossed his face, but he said nothing, only held onto his friend.

Gawain wondered if that might be something like what he'd been watching for all these years.

They rode back to the Wall in heavy silence, Lancelot silent and rigid on his horse, staring straight ahead, ignoring Arthur's presence at his side and the frequent glances their Commander sent his way. When he had awoken, he had said nothing, merely mounted his horse and followed them away from the battlefield. It was an unnerving silence, even given the circumstances. A mixture of shock and grief, Gawain supposed, but he wondered at Lancelot's distance from Arthur, when they were rarely ever apart.

Back at the garrison, the welcomes were subdued, the people both grateful for the safety of those who had returned and saddened that they were one fewer. In the general confusion of their return, Gawain did not see Lancelot leave, only noticed that Arthur was still with them.

Galahad tugged at his arm. 'Come on. A drink, for Kay.'

And so the evening passed, in drink and shared memories and sadness, and the pain of loss gradually lessened, as it always did, and Lancelot did not reappear. Arthur was a semi-constant presence in the tavern, there and then not, never gone for long enough to be going to the knights' quarters. Gawain was aware that he was still watching the Commander, so much so that Galahad prodded him at one point and asked, half drunk, if there was anything the older knight might have neglected to tell him, the question accompanied by a leer that made its meaning quite clear.

Gawain threw his arm around his young friend and made as though to kiss him, which ensured his peaceful watching for the rest of the evening. It also drew Galahad's attention from the others sufficiently that he too spent most of the evening watching Arthur, and soon realised what Gawain was looking for.

'He's waiting for Lancelot to come to him,' the younger knight informed Gawain solemnly as they walked to their quarters later that evening.

As the comment had come in the silence following a brief debate over whether it would indeed rain again tomorrow and the conclusion that in Britain this was more than likely, it took Gawain a moment to understand.

When he did, the behaviour of both Arthur and Lancelot made a lot more sense. Both so adept at feeling guilty, Arthur for surviving when Lancelot's closest other friend had died, Lancelot for his relief that Arthur had not.

Gawain sighed. Nothing between those two was ever simple, which more than anything probably explained the curiosity the other knights felt towards them.

He nodded, acknowledging the truth of Galahad's comment. 'When did you become so insightful?' he asked.

Galahad shrugged. 'S'obvious. You should pay more attention to them,' he rebuked with the gravity that drink often gave him.

It was enough to make Gawain smile as he bade his friend goodnight and slipped into his own bed.

He wasn't sure how long he had been sleeping when he was pulled awake by an unexpected noise. Hand already reaching for the sword at his bedside, he lay for a moment, listening.

The sound came again, quiet but still loud enough to be heard through the heavy drapes that separated the knights from each other in the large room where they slept.

Sobbing.

Gawain released his sword and sat up. No need to ask who that was, then, only to wonder for a moment what he should do. He and Lancelot, while friends, had never been exactly close, and anyway, perhaps Lancelot would prefer to be left alone to his grief. It was, after all, presumably quite late at night, and he would surely expect the others to be sleeping.

Gawain gave himself a mental shake and stood up, fumbling in the dark for his trousers. He could hardly leave Lancelot to cry in the darkness, and even if he wanted to, he told himself grimly, he wouldn't get any sleep that way.

Drawing aside the curtain, he padded quietly along the dark, make-shift corridor towards Lancelot's bed. As he moved, he heard soft, incomprehensible words under Lancelot's sobs.

Stepping as silently as Tristan tracking deer, he drew closer. Lancelot was lucky enough to sleep by one of the windows and in the moonlight it let in, Gawain saw Arthur sitting on Lancelot's bed, holding his friend close. Lancelot's hands clung to Arthur's clothes in fists and his whole body shuddered with sobs, his face pressed into Arthur's shoulder. The soft murmur of words came from Arthur, still incomprehensible, as they were spoken in what Gawain vaguely recognised as Arthur's native Latin.

He remained frozen there for a moment, held by Lancelot's intense pain and Arthur's soft comfort, then tore himself away. Lancelot would not want anyone to see this, and Gawain would never tell him.

As he slid back into his bed, he knew, finally, what he had been watching for all those years without knowing it.

_My first ever KA fic – please RR._


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